Heartbeat
by Jeanne M
Summary: A member of the X-Men attempts to face the demons in her mind......with an uncertain outcome.


Usual: Characters? NOT MINE. Money? NONE BEING MADE. People belong to Marvel, the song "The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning" belongs to Smashing Pumpkins. I was listening to said song, and just started typing. I didn't even know what it was. The voices really should start letting me in on the plot _BEFORE_ I finish a story.......anyways, onwards......

* * *

_Heartbeat _

Jeanne M.  
  
  
  


It's dark. She's always liked the dark. Not the dark of indoors, with pulled drapes and locked doors. That just feels wrong. It's not dark, it's void. No. She loves the night-dark. The ink of the sky, the natural deepness of everything. Even on the nights when the stars are out, she still revels in the velvet blues and blacks of the dark. It hides things, things that would wilt in the light. Things like her. It's funny, in a cosmic-funny type of way. The types of jokes that nobody except yourself and the universe finds amusing, in a morbid and ironic way. She's always wreathed in light. She shimmers, sparkles, makes the shadows scurry away in fear of her power. The shadows are unnatural, like her. 

People aren't supposed to be able to do the things she does.

But power sings in her blood, the intoxicating madness barely held at bay by sheer will alone. People have always called her stubborn. They have no fucking clue. It's all that keeps her from talking back to the soft, incessant voices cajoling in her head. A dull roar, just loud enough for her to make out the words. They offer her control of these damned powers. Control she can't master on her own. Some of them promise to free the potential that's lain dormant for so long. She doesn't know if she believes them, can she do those things? Can she evolve further, unleash the possibility of mutating again? It's terrifying. Exhilarating. Others offer up prizes she knows are lies. But it doesn't matter. Because she doesn't answer them. Oh, she's come close, but never whispered back.

When he died, she almost murmured softly, "Hello." Just to see what would happen. That would have been enough. One voice was promising to bring him back, to wipe these past few months away forever. Time, space, what were these but mortal conventions? She could feel the molecule, listen to the whisper of the atom. She could reach down to the very base level and use 'kinetics to rip something apart. Compared to that, everything else was simple. It just involved thinking differently, didn't it? She took a lot of painkillers. They never stopped the voices, just made them sound sleepy. Surreal. Easier to dismiss as liars.

She tried to wonder once what the voices were. Real people, somewhere, who felt her unconscious pain and basked in it. Psions, or latent ones. People with power like her? Maybe it was the power itself, drugging her. Or maybe she was just mad. Mad mad mad mad mad. It wouldn't be the first time she'd had a breakdown, but no one really knew about that. Or maybe they did. She wasn't sure of anything anymore. Except the pain. And the voices. So she stopped wondering. She knows that she's damned. What does it matter?

People regarded her with wary eyes at times. She didn't care. Really. Ironic, really. She'd gone from being everyone's darling pet to the one who was forgotten. They didn't ask, she didn't tell. Everyone just liked to assume that she was still their light and hope. So what if she acted oddly sometimes. Isn't that a girl's way of getting attention? Morons. If only...... but then the voices start in again. On and on and on until she has another drink and a bottle of Valium. She just takes the pills. No one ever notices that the medlab is always short on prescriptions and painkillers. If they do....just chalk it up to the job. High stress, no pay, go figure. 

So she pastes on a smile. No good to damn the others because of her. They need her light. She knows it, they know it. She's a drug. The high for the team. The mascot. Or something. At least until she decides that enough is enough. And she starts answering the chittering prophets in her mind. But that will be another day. She turns off the music, straightens her hair. Looks in the mirror to blink the decay out of her eyes. A flash of violence sends the mirror shattering across the carpet. Whoops. She didn't mean to do that- it just happened. A giggle. Walking carelessly across the razor shards. All broken, just like her. 

Just before the door, she pauses. The choir raises their voices a level. They don't like it when she's with the others. They want her to belong to them alone. She bites the inside of her cheek until the blood flows in rivulets, the tangy iron quieting their clamor. Sating them. Red rivers, red rivers, let the violence flow. She giggles again. Red. Red red red red red.

Redd.

Raging silently against the unrepentant torrent, Jean opens the door and pops her head into the hallway, smiling like a beacon while the most subversive residents of her soul resume their lure. 

"Good morning Hank! What's for breakfast?"   
  
  
  
  
  


_Send a heartbeat to the void that cries through you  
Relive the pictures that have come to pass  
For now we stand alone  
The world is lost and blown  
And we are flesh and blood disintegrate  
With no more to hate_

_Is it bright where you are?  
And have the people changed?  
Does it make you happy you're so strange?  
And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets' flame  
We can watch the world devoured in its pain_

_Delivered from the blast  
The last of a line of lasts  
The pale princess of a palace cracked  
And now the kingdom comes  
Crashing down undone  
And I am a master of a nothing place  
Of recoil and grace_

_Is it bright where you are?  
And have the people changed?  
Does it make you happy you're so strange?  
And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets' flame  
We can watch the world devoured in its pain_

_Time has stopped before us  
The sky cannot ignore us  
No one can separate us  
For we are all that is left  
The echo bounces off me  
The shadow lost beside me  
There's no more need to pretend  
Cause now I can begin again_

_Is it bright where you are?  
And have the people changed?  
Does it make you happy you're so strange?  
And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets' flame  
We can watch the world devoured in its pain  
Strange_


End file.
